Consciousness producing matter?

music

For those who believe that consciousness isn't just an emergent property of matter ... Do you then believe that consciousness produced matter? If so, how can something subtle and intangible produce so solid a world?

Trillion

Magic.

Zero

music said:

For those who believe that consciousness isn't just an emergent property of matter ... Do you then believe that consciousness produced matter? If so, how can something subtle and intangible produce so solid a world?

It sounds possible - seems logical for there to be some causal connection between matter and consciousness (given that they inhabit this interconnected space) - whether that leads to the 'production' of matter or not???!!

Is the world so solid? or consciousness so subtle? I'm not so sure... we'll probably end up trading definitions...

I'm with you on the first proposition but since we do not know the answer to that - the extrapolated supposition following is even further removed.

tmottes

When you put two magnets (both positive or negative sides) near each other and they repel, is there something solid there?

person

How solid is the world really? An individual atom is %99.99 empty space, its only the electro magnetic forces repelling each other that make them seem solid. For example if you took all the empty space out of a building the size of the Empire State Building in New York what you'd have left would be the size of a grain of rice.

Then if you look at the components of an atom and get into quantum reality where an electron exists as a wave and its only when observed that it behaves like a tangible particle its hard to see where the actual "stuff" really is.

music

What creates solidity? If you bump your head against a wall, you feel it. You can't pass through walls. I am just trying to understand this.

tmottes

music said:

What creates solidity? If you bump your head against a wall, you feel it. You can't pass through walls. I am just trying to understand this.

Electromagnetic forces repelling each other. My example of two magnets repelling each other.

music

Could you explain that a bit more?

Zero

music said:

What creates solidity? If you bump your head against a wall, you feel it. You can't pass through walls. I am just trying to understand this.

It's relative solidity - it is solid as against your system in it's particular state but perhaps not against others.

For example on system, it is not solid to a neutrino...

Or for example on state consider water, jump in from 3 feet and it's liquid - hit it from a 100 feet and it's more like concrete.

Jeffrey

All knowledge of matter appears in consciousness.

Even if there is matter a world with no consciousness would be void.

Thus 'matter' as an experience is the domain of conscious mind. We have no other notion of matter other than a thought.

If scientists hooked up a mind reading machine and they told you that you were thinking of an elephant when you were really thinking of a glass of ice water would you believe the scientists or would you believe your own experience? If the latter well then you can see that our experience comes from our subjective mind rather than imputations based on conjecture.

tmottes

Almost all atoms are "surrounded" by a cloud of negatively changed electrons. When you try and push two atoms together the electrons repel each other. (electro-magnetic force)

Keep in mind that this is a very simple and basic explanation and there are other forces that can overcome this repulsion and thus bring atoms together into more complex structures (molecules). The fundamental forces of nature

Jeffrey

Atoms can attract eachother also:

Vanderwaals forces also called London Dispersion forces (makes gasoline a liquid)

Electrostatic attraction (Na+ Cl-)

Attraction of polar molecules. (dimethyl sulfoxide)

Hydrogen bonding. (water)

tmottes

Jeffrey said:

Atoms can attract eachother also:

Vanderwaals forces also called London Dispersion forces (makes gasoline a liquid)

Electrostatic attraction (Na+ Cl-)

Attraction of polar molecules. (dimethyl sulfoxide)

Hydrogen bonding. (water)

Thanks... this is probably a better level for showing that atoms can attract each other, rather than going too fundamental to the forces of nature. LOL

Jeffrey

Oh forgot the covalent bonds which allow for molecules and di-atomic elements such as O2

Songhill

music :

Have you been following Donal D. Hoffman with his theory of conscious realism?

"Conscious realism is a non-physicalist monism. What exists in the objective world, independent of my perceptions, is a world of conscious agents, not a world of unconscious particles and fields. Those particles and fields are icons in the MUIs [multimodal user interface] of conscious agents, but are not themselves fundamental denizens of the objective world. Consciousness is fundamental. It is not a late comer in the evolutionary history of the universe, arising from complex interactions of unconscious matter and fields. Consciousness is first; matter and fields depend on it for their very existence. So the terms “matter” and “consciousness” function differently for the conscious realist than they do for the physicalist. For the physicalist, matter and other physical properties are ontologically fundamental; consciousness is derivative, arising from or identified with complex interactions of mat- ter. For the conscious realist, consciousness is ontologically fundamental; matter is derivative, and among the symbols constructed by conscious agents" (http://www.cogsci.uci.edu/~ddhoff/ConsciousRealism2.pdf).

DairyLama

person said:

Then if you look at the components of an atom and get into quantum reality where an electron exists as a wave and its only when observed that it behaves like a tangible particle its hard to see where the actual "stuff" really is.

They reckon it's all based on tiny little vibrating strings of energy....but if you drop a brick on your foot is still hurts.

DairyLama

music said:

For those who believe that consciousness isn't just an emergent property of matter

I think consciousness is an emergent property of life. But that doesn't mean it isn't strange and mysterious.

Zero

PedanticPorpoise said:

....but if you drop a brick on your foot is still hurts.

I dropped one such brick on my foot recently - I can attest that it did indeed f****** rag... amusing as after I thought, all this quantum mechanics and the brick couldn't just dematerialise into the wave function? I was disappointed with my choices leading to that event... obviously I'm manifesting in the wrong universe!!

tmottes

Zero said:

PedanticPorpoise said:

....but if you drop a brick on your foot is still hurts.

I dropped one such brick on my foot recently - I can attest that it did indeed f****** rag... amusing as after I thought, all this quantum mechanics and the brick couldn't just dematerialise into the wave function? I was disappointed with my choices leading to that event... obviously I'm manifesting in the wrong universe!!

I watched something on the discovery channel (?) and one of the physicists suggested that either the wave actually preceded the particle and created a path for the particle to follow... or that the particle created the wave, similar to a marble on a taught piece of cloth.

Zero

tmottes said:

...one of the physicists suggested that either the wave actually preceded the particle and created a path for the particle to follow... or that the particle created the wave, similar to a marble on a taught piece of cloth.

I bet they'll work it out the day after I die...!!

I won't be asking for last rites... think I'd rather have a quick round up of the latest physics!!

tmottes

Zero said:

tmottes said:

...one of the physicists suggested that either the wave actually preceded the particle and created a path for the particle to follow... or that the particle created the wave, similar to a marble on a taught piece of cloth.

I bet they'll work it out the day after I die...!!

I won't be asking for last rites... think I'd rather have a quick round up of the latest physics!!

HAHA... sign me up for that too! :dunce:

Silouan

Examination of the Rainbow Body phenomenon and/or Resurrection are insightful with regards to how consciousness and matter are integrated, and how matter is seen as ultimately affected by higher states of consciousness.

I have posted this link on the Rainbow Body before. It is well worth the listen.
noetic.org/library/audio-lectures/the-rainbow-body-phenomenon-with-father-francis-ti/

Songhill

PedanticPorpoise:

I think consciousness is an emergent property of life. But that doesn't mean it isn't strange and mysterious.

So what's life an emergent property of?

Songhill

Silouan:

This is from the Pali Nikayas:

And again, Udayin, a course has been pointed out by me for disciples [airya-savaka], practising which disciples of mine from this body (mentally) produce (another) body having a material shape, mind made [rûpim mano-mayam], having all its major and mior parts, not deficient in any sense organ” (M.ii.17) (Brackets are mine.)

music

Songhill said:

PedanticPorpoise:

I think consciousness is an emergent property of life. But that doesn't mean it isn't strange and mysterious.

So what's life an emergent property of?

Consciousness is life.

Songhill

Music:

That doesn't actually answer the question. You might consider this:

“There is the ‘Mind-only,’ there are no objects to be seen; when there are no objects to see, Mind is not born; and this is called by myself and others the Middle Way. ~ Lankavatara Sutra

Florian

Music - You question the idea that an immaterial consciousness can give rise to extended matter. Rightly so I would say. But by the same token you must question the idea that extended matter can give rise to immaterial consciousness. Neither idea makes sense.

According to reason an immaterial thing and a material thing cannot directly causally interact. So a third third term is required to mediate the relationship. This leaves us with the idea that mind and matter are mutually dependent phenomena, and with the consequent idea that there must be more to the world than mental and corporeal phenomena.

This is the reason why 'scientific' consciousness studies is at a standstill. Nearly all the participants assume that mind and matter are all there is. This creates a series of intractable problems and a discipline that goes endlessly around in circles. The good news is that this seems to be becoming more and more obvious. Still, I think the passing of a generation of philosopher of mind will be required for any real change, one of Thomas Kuhn's major paradigm shifts. There are signs...

Daozen

I personally believe that consciousness emerges from purely physical properties yet is irreducible to them due to natural constraints.

Put another way, our minds like really advanced versions of cellular automata (see Conway's Game of Life); simple underlying rules (neuron impulses) leading to irreducibly complex results.

jumbles

For those who believe that consciousness isn't just an emergent property of matter ...
just an emergent property.
Wondrous!

Florian

I would have thought that if a property or phenomenon is emergent then it is reducible. Is this not what 'emergent' means? To have one way emergence is like having one way causation, where matter is allowed to cause mind but mind is not allowed to cause matter, as if there's some sort of valve between the two. Neither idea appears to make sense to me but just leave us in the usual non-reductive muddle.

One idea that does make sense is 'relative phenomenalism', which is the Buddhist solution as it appears in consciousness studies. This is certainly wondrous.

Daozen

Florian said:

I would have thought that if a property or phenomenon is emergent then it is reducible.

If the complexity is high enough, it's simply not possible due to the amount of computing power required. You can get results (like consciousness) that were not predictable from the initial conditions (simple cells).

That's why science tends to work in 'layers', and each layer deals with phenomena on a certain scale. On the bottom layer there's physics, then there's chemistry, molecular biology, biology, all the way up to psychology which is the study of consciousness in western terms. I basically think of Buddha as the greatest psychologist of all time.

Jeffrey

What does reducible mean? Does in mean that it is reversible?

Daozen

It basically means that, by understanding all the bits and pieces, you understand the whole, how it works, and how to fix it. Just like a mechanic studying a car.

But with a mind, even though the underlying 'parts' may be physical matter (brains cells and so on), there's no way to convert the thought "On Tuesday I went swimming" into a physical equivalent because the physical processes underlying it are just too complex: the thought can't be "reduced" to a physical description.

Florian

Yes, it means something very like reversible. Materialist say that the mind can be reduced to the brain, and this would include all thoughts, since minds would be emergent from brains and we can reverse this process conceptually. Or we might argue that biology can be reduced to chemistry can be reduced to physics etc. The Abhidharma says that everything can be reduced to Nirvana. Hegel says that everything can be reduced to a spiritual unity. A cake can be reduced to its ingredients. A piano can be reduced to a collection of wave-particles.

If the system is very complex we may not be able to reduce it in practice but reduction is usually a conceptual thing. As Daozan points out, features may emerge that seeem to be irreducible, as in cases where the whole is greater than parts, or has features that cannot be found in the parts. But I'm not sure that this means they are not reducible or whether it's just that we haven't figured out how to do it yet. The goal for theoretical physics is a fully reductive theory, ie a theory that is fundamental. The big debate in consciousness studies is whether mind reduces to matter or matter to mind. So far neither idea can be made to work, as Buddhism predicts.

I see the point about new levels of (irreducible) complexity emerging, But I'm not convinced that we can't simply say that anything that is emergent is reducible. Certainly it seems to be necessary for the Buddhist worldview, which is reductionism with a vengeance. Hegel calls the process by which we reduce concepts 'sublation'. This is the process by which he reduces the world and the mind to a pristine unity.

nlighten

Here is an interesting video about Buddhism and quantum physics. I don't know if it will answer your question, but it is interesting and provides some insight @ 3:20
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ZlmrHMBW36w

David

music said:

For those who believe that consciousness isn't just an emergent property of matter ... Do you then believe that consciousness produced matter? If so, how can something subtle and intangible produce so solid a world?

For this I think we would have to consider the possibility of rudementary and advanced stages of consciousness. Intelligence is the sharing of information but the ability to store and recall intelligence is to be intelligent.

There is nothing that isn't the result of information being shared in one form or another and the evolution of our triune brain system is a process born from intelligence but is that intelligence conscious in any way or could it be in a process of being aware of itself?

I am...

Jeffrey

One didn't produce the other. They are co-arising. The form skhanda and the four mental skhandas.

Think about it. What would form BE if there was no mentation? We have no idea what that would be, do we?

What would consciousness be if there were no form? I guess you could say it is a dream? But there seems to be form in a dream, an inner dream-form.

misecmisc1

Frankly speaking, i think Buddha did not answered this question about how immaterial thing like Consciousness arise in a material thing like matter at the first place - as this question finally drills down to how the first life got created in this universe . Since Buddha taught that there is no beginning and no end of this Samsara, so pondering over the question - how life in this universe got created at the first place - is not beneficial to ending of suffering in this life.

But i think Hinduism has the answer to this question, as it says - the whole universe is composed of Consciousness and matter. The Universal Consciousness splits into several Consciousness, which after getting into the matter of a human baby - gets individuated as an individual or 'I' due to ignorance, leading to egotism or individualization , leading to attachment, aversion and fear and in turn creating this Samsara. So the ultimate goal of human life is to realize who they really are and at the last stage of Kundalini awakening at Crown chakra, the splitted Consciousness merges back into Universal Consciousness, leading to end of Samsara for that splitted Consciousness - or - if this end objective is not attained, then at death Conciousness moves from one physical body to another physical body, depending on the output as governed by a person's actions in the past, as per the law of karma, and so the Samsara continues.

Moreover, i think Hinduism also conveys this idea that the basic thing is Consciousness as matter is also a manifestation of Consciousness - though it seems difficult to grasp this statement - but in Hinduism mythology, it is said that initially there was just Consciousness and nothing else - then Consciousness tried to manifest as a vibration of AUM sound and that vibration finally created all the matter in the universe - An interesting thing which i find here is that one of the latest theories in Quantum Physics, which is the String M theory - it shows that if we keep on breaking the atomic particles like proton, neutron, electron etc, we will end up in strings - which are nothing but vibrations. So quantum physics says that all matter at its deepest level are just vibrations.

As Buddha taught, the outer world Samsara is a projection of our mind. It is our mind which creates the solidity effect of external objects, the colours, the sound etc. So we are living in a matrix and the only way out seems to be Nirvana or Self-Realization.

Florian

I'm with Jeffrey on this. Mental and corporeal phenomena would be co-arisen. There would be a third term from which they emerge in co-dependence. No alternative theory works, as we see from modern 'scientific' consciousness studies. I see this as both the Buddhist and advaita view, as would be consistent with the principle of nonduality.

MInd-Matter is a distinction. Nonduality would say that for an ultimate view there is no such thing as a distinction, and thus a 'Middle Way' would be required for a solution to the Mind-Matter dilemma. Hence mysticism as 'the doctrine of the mean'.

essem

Here's a curiosity that I stumbled upon more than two years ago.

What do you make of it?

If you're passing through Malaysia, I can show you the original file on a
memory card.

Notwithstanding, may you all remain well and happy!

ThailandTom

All I know is that I can tap into states of consciousness, I interact with the world around me (your 'matter'), and I cannot change solid objects with my thoughts :P Seriously though, I was thinking today and something small clicked within, where is that table I see? Over there? No it is in your head and my head. It is not even a table, the conception of a table is in your head and my head. There is no 'you' or 'me', and oh no, what have I just done :eek:

DairyLama

Jeffrey said:

What would consciousness be if there were no form?

Well traditionally in Buddhism there are formless realms, mind only.

Florian

True. But there are also subtle states of matter. It seems to me in accordance with the teachings that all matter has a portion of thought and all thought has a portion of matter. But this is not something I know.

Jeffrey

@PedanticPorpoise, ah yes that's true.

Citta

music said:

For those who believe that consciousness isn't just an emergent property of matter ... Do you then believe that consciousness produced matter? If so, how can something subtle and intangible produce so solid a world?

I havent read all of the thread..so this might be redundant,,but why do you assume that matter and consciousness are two ?

Jeffrey

What are the boundaries of the mind? Does the matter start outside of the body? How does mind reach out and apprehend the matter? If they don't interdigitate how can the information about matter get to the mind/thoughts?

My teacher's teacher had a doha or song where he said that thinking mind and body are two leads to suffering.

I think that mind and body and matter all have to interbe..

DairyLama

Citta said:

music said:

For those who believe that consciousness isn't just an emergent property of matter ... Do you then believe that consciousness produced matter? If so, how can something subtle and intangible produce so solid a world?

I havent read all of the thread..so this might be redundant,,but why do you assume that matter and consciousness are two ?

If you watch somebody die the distinction is obvious.

Citta

Depends who is doing the watching.

David

PedanticPorpoise said:

Citta said:

music said:

For those who believe that consciousness isn't just an emergent property of matter ... Do you then believe that consciousness produced matter? If so, how can something subtle and intangible produce so solid a world?

I havent read all of the thread..so this might be redundant,,but why do you assume that matter and consciousness are two ?

If you watch somebody die the distinction is obvious.

But the distinction is just a transfer of information (requiring some form of logistics) which could possibly be considered a rudimentary form of intelligence itself.

Even with natural selection... What exactly is it that selects?

Seems to denote a certain kind of universal instinct.

Florian

Citta said:

Depends who is doing the watching.

Great response.

Talisman

Consciousness and Form are co-arisen phenomena which means that when one arises, as does the other. It's not that consciousness is the direct cause of form, or that form is the direct cause of consciousness. These functions exist dependent upon many many many other processes. What matters is that if there was no form then there would be no consciousness and if there was no consciousness there would be no form.